What makes this phone a better option than even the new Motorola Moto X for Android buyers? Granted, the Moto X looks like a very nice handset, with an impressive build quality and the interesting color customizations. Still, four things put the HTC One slightly ahead of the newer Moto X. They include hardware quality, the display, camera video and photo quality and excellent sound.

Before looking into the strengths of the HTC One over the Moto X, let me admit that the Moto X software looks impressive. It listens to the user while being ready to obey commands at all times, as the following ad demonstrates:

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Still, for users who don’t talk to their phones much, unless they’re in a call, this feature may go unused.

HTC One Hardware Compared to the Moto X

Before using the HTC One I wondered why so many people thought a metal body on a phone always made it so much better. As a Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 user I reasoned that plastic was lighter and therefore better? True, but it’s also more flimsy.

The HTC One feels sturdier than every other phone out there, except maybe iPhone 4 and newer. The HTC One screen looks great, the buttons feel firm and even the micro-USB doesn’t seem like it will bend or fall apart, unlike other micro-USB phone connectors.

Add the features below to these and we get a better phone. What’s more, look at the list of specs below where the HTC One beats the Moto X.

Pixel density for a crisper display. The HTC One offers 468ppi compared to 316 on the Moto X

HTC One gives us 100mAh more battery power

Double the storage at with 32GB compared to 16GB on the Moto X

HTC One Display Compared to the Moto X

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We like the HTC One display over the Moto X. They both look very good, but images and text appear clearer on the HTC One thanks to the higher resolution and greater pixel density mentioned above. As a result it offers a crisper reading experience. Video looks richer and images seem more detailed. Playing games will benefit as well from a higher res screen.

HTC One Camera Compared to the Moto X

Both phones seem to offer nice photographic features and options, but we like HTC One camera better. For example, take the excellent Zoe feature on the HTC camera. It takes a short video and a series of shots at full resolution. The user can find the best frame in the short video and it saves the corresponding picture from the series of photos taken to the photo gallery. We love this feature for getting great action shots or group shots. It also pre-rolls the camera so, even if the user hits the shutter button late, she can still get the image.

In our review of the Moto X, editor Josh Smith said about the camera:

Motorola makes a big deal about the camera in the Moto X, … but the camera relies on automatic detection of exposure and focus too much in many cases.

Here’s a low light video sample taken with the HTC One that proves how good the HTC One sensor handles a challenging photographic setting like low light.

Here’s an image sample from the HTC One camera in low light with a lot of backlighting. While the sky looks blown out, the rest of the shot offers good color and lighting despite an extremely difficult backlighting. Few phone cameras would take as good an image.

Some users will buy into the megapixel marketing light since the Moto X offers a 10MP sensor. However, the 4MP sensor on the HTC One makes better shots for displaying on a screen and for printing smaller images at 5×7 or lower.

HTC One Sound Compared to the Moto X

The HTC One’s two front facing speakers, we get better sound on the HTC One compared to the Moto X. In our Moto X review editor Josh Smith, wrote:

As for audio quality, Motorola delivers respectable sound but overall it is not up to par with the HTC One’s BoomSound front-facing speakers that deliver clearer, louder music and audio for movies.

That’s four key areas where the HTC One shines. That’s why it’s still the best Android handset available. We’ll see if it can reign supreme after we get ahold of the new Nexus 5 coming very soon, by all signs.

Kevin loves notebooks, tablets, gadgets and photography. He grew up with computers starting out on a Vic 20 and Commodore 64. The first computer he owned himself was an 8086 Compaq Deskpro. His foray into tablet computing began when he bought a Samsung Q1 Ultra. The smartphone market opened up for him with his Palm Treo 600.

Unless you used a Moto X you really have no idea how great it is. I’ve had two HTC phones. The thunderbolt and droid dna and both were trash. Nothing but issues. In day to day use Motorola has always been better.

A complete waste of time. The Moto X has never been a contender for the title of hardware champion. Even when it was released it’s ranking in terms of hardware put it above average but little more. I also particularly love the way you instantly dismissed the audio response feature of the Moto X in a sentence or two. Are you short of something to write about?

It is funny how the writer of this article says HTC One is slightly better than Moto X, when the details in the article reveal that HTC One is actually far better than Moto X. They are actually from a different leagues.

The Moto X has outperformed the HTC and every other Android handset in a wide range of common performance bench tests- see anandtech’s lengthy report. Quad-core cpu’s are so limited by thermal overheating concerns that they can’t run all cores at even close to full speed, so the extra processors are a net dead weight liability compared to the Moto X’s distributed processing of a dual-core soc and ancillary outboard processors for graphics etc. The X also has fewer pixels to drive, and the result is the fastest performing Android phone available, with longer battery life due to less CPU and pixel dead weight.

my best friend’s sister makes $76/hr on the laptop. She has been without work for 10 months but last month her pay was $21886 just working on the laptop for a few hours. find out here……. http://iop.li/FR

When aluminum meets concrete, the finish…. well, it is what it is. Moto X, like other Motorola devices before it can take a beating and keep on ticking. That aside, What’s appalling is the sheer bias when doing Apples to Oranges comparison… which I vehemently loathe. I also subscribe to the idea that there is an ideal phone meant for every user. Variety is the spice of life, right? BUT, HTC has been outpaced badly this year and they need to step it up. To regain my respect, they need to innovate.